


Wasted Time

by Lamamu



Series: Midam ramblings [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Universe, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Adam Milligan, Pining Michael, Post-Cage, Protective Michael, midam, pining adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 22:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamamu/pseuds/Lamamu
Summary: The second part of Adam's story, after it had been revealed that it was Michael that had taken his (and also his own) memories away from him in order to save his life.Needless to say, both are in a highly emotional state, having t h o s e memories restored all at once.





	Wasted Time

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm happy to hear from everyone!
> 
> Let me know what you think.

_Fancy seeing you here.._

Adam could have cursed those four words forever. They meant.. So much, but at the same time were the source of so much fucking heartache he didn’t know where or when it was ever going to end.

At least _before_ he didn’t remember why he felt so damn empty and so alone.

Now, as he wallowed in the aftermath of what Michael had shown him, and the.. _nothing_ they’d had soon after.. And then the heartbreaking argument they’d had instead of just wishing each other a happy birthday or creation day or whatever.., well, it was safe to say Adam Milligan was balancing on a blade's’ edge like it was a tightrope.

The fall to either side would kill him, he was certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And the splat when he hit the bottom? That was going to obliterate him, and in his darkest moments, he welcomed the thought.

All he could see, taste or smell… all he could f e e l was the archangel, and the way it had felt when they’d succumbed, finally caving into how they truly felt after so many months of confusion and doubt, of denial and desire.

The memory was as raw and new as though it had happened only days before, instead of years, but Adam just guessed that came with the territory. The sweet memory of their bodies joined together on that crusty hotel bed made bittersweet by the knowledge that it had been Michael all along who had taken it from him. That it had been the archangel, and not some other evil force or therapist that had rearranged his mind and made him believe that none of it was real, that the only constant was the death of his mother.. And even that had been warped.

Adam felt the betrayal and it consumed him, but he also felt that in that betrayal the archangel probably did feel that he acted in Adam’s best interests. The conflict was a constant war within him, and he hated himself for constantly giving Michael the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes.

He just wished... that with the unraveling of his memories, there had been one that arose where he’d agreed to the erasing of his mind. Then it would be easier to swallow. Then, he’d have understanding instead of confusion, and in that understanding he could have the ability to put things into perspective.

Because right now, all Adam felt was anger. Anger, the desire to hit something and the urging by the archangel to move on. But he couldn’t, he’d know.. He’d been trying unconsciously for years.

Sure, Adam had dated on and off during college but for the most part he was too busy, too focused on doing those _amazing things_ he’d been sent off to do without being asked first if that’s what he wanted. He’d dated, yes. But everyone had been so.. Bland, like eating a water cracker when you’d tasted a parmesan rosemary twist. Or drinking a clean skin bastardised red wine blend when your taste-buds had sampled a Penfolds Cabernet.

Adam knew his food, he was an educated man, okay?

So, there he was, alternating between hiding his feelings in what he could raid from the dispensary at the hospital to a bottle of whiskey ...and hadn’t _that_ been annoying when he’d woken up to find the very bottle he’d been given for his birthday _by the archangel_ taken away again - probably for his own good -. Adam was spiralling, falling deeper into a dark pit of despair with every passing day and he didn’t know how to stop.

Worse, he didn’t know if what he was feeling was _normal_ , or if it was something new, and that terrified him. He didn’t want to go back to an institution. His colleagues were already looking at him sideways after the incident in the operating room when he’d had to be sedated, and that was _before_ he knew what the truth was.

“Ahhh, shit.”

Running a frustrated hand through his blonde hair, Adam paced the floor in his crummy apartment, feeling the side effects from the night before when he’d come off shift and headed to a bar with two nurses and another doctor. His mind shied away from the fact that one of them, a short, pretty brunette with a wicked glint in her green eyes and had offered him more than just a drink. He didn’t want to think about how she’d cornered him on his way out of the bathroom and kissed him as she’d trailed her fingertips over his groin, hoping to get a rise out of him.

Literally.

Or how she’d given him her number, placed one of his hands between her legs and then invited him back to her place with an offer ride his cock until the sadness left his eyes. It was tempting, but only as far as wanting to _forget_ went.. And Adam wasn’t stupid, he knew it wouldn’t work, and so in his mind there was no point to a meaningless fuck that he’d regret before it was even over. Adam also knew he could have her fired, and thankfully she’d backed off once he’d explained he wasn’t exactly on the market, and that she was out of line.

Hey, it was half true.

He just wasn’t interested.

Hearing his phone chime from the bedroom, Adam made his way there to find it and his eyes fell on the immaculate box on his dresser.

The one with the untouched bags of his favourite snacks and the forty thousand dollars in it. His jaw clenched when he remembered the almost dispassionate way Michael had explained his reasoning behind the money, the disinterest he’d shown when Adam had asked him to come with him to see what he had an idea for... And the way he’d ignored the snacks, not mentioning them at all until Adam had brought them up.

Asshole.

He couldn’t even admit why he’d given them to Adam at all.. Or that he remembered that they were _exactly_ the same ones Adam had bought to share with him on that last day they’d had together before the end.

There didn’t seem to be anything sentimental about the archangel at all. Why would there be? It wasn’t like Adam was one of his siblings. He was just a vessel. One that was no longer needed. He was lucky he wasn’t a drooling mess, if he remembered correctly.

_'I love you'_

The last words Michael had said to him before wiping his mind rose unbidden in his mind as he stared at the box. A hard lump formed in his throat.

“Fu--ck..”

Burying it deep, Adam just stalked past the box to retrieve his phone from the charger he’d set up there, raising a brow at the request from the CDC for volunteers to help stop diseases from running rampant in the aftermath of the aptly named _Hurricane Michael_. Town and villages had lost power, and losing power meant the infrastructure failed… and that mean sewage systems and water supply, which was fine for the US states for the most part. It was the islands in the Caribbean that would suffer the most.

He didn’t hesitate, he just sent off his reply. Of course he was going. As soon as he could. Anything to keep his mind occupied, right? Adam sighed, knowing the truth of it, that nothing was going to take his mind off the archangel, nothing but another mind wipe, or the blissful oblivion that came with ignorance.

Or the bottom of a bottle. To that end, the young doctor shrugged himself into his coat and headed out, wandering the streets with no real destination in mind. He just wanted to walk, to be outside where he didn’t have to smell the lingering fragrance of Michael.

Yeah, a couple of weeks later, he could still smell him, and the brief visit he’d paid him a few days before had only emphasised it all over again.

Step after agonising step, Adam’s mind whirled. Since his mind had been unlocked, he’d walked for miles each day, stopping only when his feet got too tired. Then he’d make his way home and start drinking whatever bottle he’d picked up in his wandering. After that, he’d get up, shower.., pull a ten hour stint at the hospital and then do it all again.

Anything was better than being alone in his apartment with his thoughts. The tall blonde was drawn, exhausted, not eating or sleeping properly and it was starting to show.

He wondered if Michael knew how much had been unlocked, if he meant to give Adam back _everything_ with such startling clarity that it, like the memory of their night tangled in the sheets was fresh and new.

Probably. Adam knew, he _remembered_ from their time in the mental hospital that Michael wasn’t always nice, and that sometimes he’d be unfriendly just for the sake of it.

He completely and utterly loved the arrogant jerk anyway.

Still. Regardless. Hopeless.

Stamping his feet against the cold, Adam kept walking.

Against his will, his mind kept showing him images of his past, just it had every day since it was unlocked. Adam had been eaten alive by ghouls and resurrected by angels only to be used as a tool to lure brothers he hadn’t even known existed into a trap (and wasn’t he breaking the fourth wall with frosty glares at Raphael now and then for her role in it all when nobody was looking. _She_ , at least, had the grace to look uncomfortable about it, if only for her brothers’ sake). If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d taken a stint as Michael’s vessel and been tipped into the cage by his half brother Sam, who’d been wearing Lucifer at the time.

They’d left him behind to save themselves.

Step, step, step. Left, right, left.

The cage, it was fuzzy, like looking through frosted glass, and Adam suspected Michael was doing him yet another favour by blocking that from him. If that was the case, then he knew it /must/ be bad. Worse than the heartache he was currently experiencing, worse than the loss and the emptiness that his whole adult life had been based on a half truth given to him by someone he’d never stopped loving, even when he had no idea what he was pining for.

One day Adam would thank Michael for /that/ at least. Right now he was aching too damn much to think about anything but escaping from the pain by whatever means he could find.

Step, step, step.

And so it went, day after day, with Adam just looking for an escape. Some days he went south, some north, it didn’t matter which way he started, lately his feet had started to take him on a circuitous path that always ended in the same place. Through the tree-lined streets of Madison, out of the affordable (cheap) suburb he was still living in and into the more hip area where he went for his coffee fix, though that wasn’t all he could find there.

No, apparently Adam’s feet wanted him to keep finding the dilapidated house he realised was now standing in front of. Again. The one he’d asked Michael to come and see. Yeah, it had boards nailed over the windows and a ‘for sale’ sign so old and faded he couldn’t help but wonder why, and a random, tiny pale orange kitten that kept hissing at him from the bushes underneath the letterbox. But aside from that, and the obvious state of disrepair, there was something about it that he drew him back.

Adam stood there, huddled in on himself in the cool afternoon air and let his blue eyes wander over the structure for the hundredth time.

He’d done the math. Even without Michael’s money, he could afford to buy _something_. Maybe just not in the area he wanted. This area. He sighed, kicked at a random pebble and turned, pointing his feet in the direction that would eventually lead to his apartment on the cheap side of town.

“Something I can help you with sir?”

The voice startled Adam, and he turned around to see a middle aged lady standing beside a car that had just pulled up to the curb. She was wearing one of those weird pantsuits women often wore when they felt they had to prove that they fit into the corporate world. A sensible navy blue, a little too much make-up and one of those weird, severely cut triangle haircuts that reminded him of an internet meme. He saw her stern gaze wander over him and then drift to the old house again. There was a distinct look of resignation on her face.

He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep them warm.

“I like the house.”

The woman blinked at him, startled. Nobody ever just ‘liked the house’. They liked the street, the position, the redevelopment potential of the woody acre that was attached to the back of it. She’d been trying to get rid of it for years since the last owner had died, and no matter what.. Every sale fell through.

“This house has bad luck attached to it. But I’ll take you through it if you like. I’m Brenda.”

Of _course_ she was.

Full disclosure, Adam screwed up his nose, took a deep breath and just nodded at her.

“Name’s Adam.”

They shook hands, and he followed her up the path towards the door. As he walked, the little orange kitten darted out and took a swipe at his ankle, beating at it with its’ tiny paws before scrambling off again, bouncing sideways with a puffed up tail back into the bushes.

For the first time in a while, Adam smiled. Then he realised Brenda was talking and refocused on her instead of the kitten and the smile vanished.

“...dead on the kitchen floor. Heart attack. Very sad.”

She sounded anything but, though Adam kept his mouth shut and listened to her ramble on about the house, the list of repairs she had at the office, the structure report, how old Mr Jones had grown weed in his greenhouse with his tomatoes. Where the nearest store was, what the locals were like, who he should call to get the plumbing fixed and wasn’t he cute? She had a niece that would eat him right up.

Adam was barely hearing her. His eyes were taking in the architraves, the high ceilings and the fireplace in the living room. Sure, the lime green walls were hideous, and the carpet was so faded and worn he could see floorboards instead of fabric but that didn’t bother him at all. It was cosmetic. As long as the house was solid, the rest didn’t matter. He followed Brenda through the tired blue and yellow kitchen, a room he suspected was supposed to be a study and a dining room. Randomly, there was a _pink_ bathroom that apparently functioned as a laundry.

The whole layout made no sense.

“Upstairs?”

He pointed at the staircase and it’s scratched railing but didn’t wait for Brenda to reply, his feet were already on the stairs. Once up there, Adam found a bathroom, three bedrooms and another living room, all different colours, as if the previous owner had just bought all the reject paint colours from the hardware store and put no thought into what it would look like.

It was truly cringeworthy, but Adam saw past it.

What he saw wasn’t the faded, peeling paint and the carpet that made him sneeze. He saw the bones of the house, and more importantly, he saw something that might keep him occupied that didn’t involve wearing out a new pair of shoes every other week.

Something that might take his mind off Michael for long enough that he could wear himself out and sleep deeply enough to not dream of tangled limbs and ocean coloured eyes.

He knew deep down it wasn’t possible, and as he followed Brenda and her strange haircut back down the stairs and outside again, Adam found himself asking her how much.

Her answer surprised the blonde. With what he had saved by living in his shitty student apartment, combined with the box full of money Michael had dropped in his lap... Adam barely needed a loan.

“Guess I owe him for that, too.”

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.

“Pardon?” Brenda locked the door and scuttled down the stairs, walking back down the path to her car, not really listening to whatever response Adam had. She’d already dismissed his interest as peripheral. Nobody /ever/ wanted the house, not after they’d seen the sheer amount of effort required to make it liveable.

Adam turned back to look at the house, nodded to himself, inhaled.. and then flicked his gaze to Brenda, bending down to scoop up the kitten who had come back out of the bushes to sit on his booted foot and attack his shoelaces.

It hissed at him and bit his fingers. Adam could feel nothing but tiny bones and ribs under its’ fur, and it was shivering. Without thinking twice, he nestled the feisty orange fluffball into the crook of his elbow to offer it some warmth, for a while at least.

“I said I’ll take it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, the fourth wall breaking with Raphael is me, with the muses in my head having little conversations with each other now and then.


End file.
